inmate advocates

No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. Best Western, Bama Budweiser and Burger King are among the more than 500 businesses to lease incarcerated workers from one of the most violent, overcrowded and unruly prison systems in the U.S. in the past five years alone,

An Associated Press investigation into prison labor in the United States found that prisoners who are hurt or killed on the job are often being denied the rights and protections offered to other American workers. In Alabama alone, at least three men have died since 2015.

The families of Alabama prison inmates have filed lawsuits alleging that organs were harvested from the bodies of dead inmates, often against the wishes of relatives. CNN and the Courthouse News Service report Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm and the University of Alabama Birmingham are named in the suits.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Former inmates and family members of current ones are seeking a voice on prison reform.The inmate advocates on Wednesday packed a…